Orthotic devices and appliances are well known in the prior art for treating a multitude of inflictions in the joints of human patients. The typical joints treated are the wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, ankles and knees. All types of inflictions can be treated with various known orthotic devices in all of these critical joints. The inflictions include traumatic injury by blunt force, arthritis, abnormal contracture due to stroke, infections in the bones and surrounding tissue, deterioration through old age, excessive use and a myriad of other known medical conditions. All of these inflictions have things in common. They all result in moderate to severe pain in the stricken joint and the inability for the joint to flex and extend without proper treatment and medical intervention. And even in the case of treatment, of which is currently used in the prior art, it still does not return the patient to anywhere near a normal life. Further, the lack of proper flexion and extension inevitably leads to a bevy of secondary problems, such as loss of muscle strength surrounding the stricken joint and lack of use of the stricken joint. In the case of the hips, ankles and knees, many times the patient cannot walk. Or, if the ability to walk still exists, it is done with an improper gait, many times with the use of walker and usually with excruciating pain, which is then typically treated with strong and addictive pain medication therapy.
Nowhere are these problems more prevalent than with the knee joint, and in particular the inability for the leg with the inflicted knee joint to properly extend after it has contracted (“a flexion deformity”) due to whatever infliction has been experienced by the patient. This is known has “knee flexion contracture” or the inability for the patient to fully straighten or extend the knee. Normal active range of motion of the knee for a healthy person is 0° extension and 140° flexion. Patients having a flexion deformity, either one or both of them (extension and flexion) are reduced, sometimes severally. Normally, this occurs as a result of failure of knee flexors to lengthen in tandem with the bone, especially when there is inadequate physical therapy to provide active and passive mobilization of the inflicted knee joint.
Prior art devices and methods of treatment (i.e., physical therapy), best used in tandem, do exist to treat knee flexion contracture, but such devices and methods are typically used while the patient lies on bed or sits in a chair. The devices typically employ casting of the knee to employ a custom made brace to affect stretching of the knee flexors. Pressure is applied, just as is done in physical therapy (“PT”) when the brace is not employed, by utilizing strapping to affect posterior-anterior mobilization. Or in other words, pressure is applied on top of the thigh (anterior) downward and upon the back of the calf (posterior) upward with strapping while attempting to flex the knee and straighten the leg. These same exercises can be done when not employing the brace by the hands of a physical therapist. However, as stated above, both the known knee braces and the PT are done while the patient lies in bed or sits in a chair. Nowhere in the prior art does a knee brace or other orthotic device exist, which permits the patient to apply posterior-anterior mobilization while the patient stands up, let along while he ambulates.
Accordingly, an improved knee brace is clearly needed to affect posterior-anterior mobilization, which does not regulate the patient to a bed or chair during treatment. Such improved knee brace could be used with continued PT, but would not necessarily be required since the improved knee brace would imitate the PT while the patient ambulates.
Such an improved knee brace would have increased benefits since if the patient is ambulating, then he is also strengthening his muscles above, around and below the knee joint, something that is thought impossible to achieve while employing known flexion contracture knee braces in conjunction with physical therapy.